A New Week

Last week was a rough one. The sad thing was that it was only a four day week - we had Friday off - and yet I felt the need to take a personal day to make it only a three day week. What can I say... when it rains it pours.

I was exhausted after only one day of teaching on Monday, and then had to spend four hours of my evening at California State University for credentialing classes. Upon getting home, I decided that Tuesday would be my first substitute teacher day, mainly because I had no plans ironed out for the next day. The silly thing, in retrospect, was the fact that I still ended up making lesson plans for my sub the next day. But my day off was much needed, and I actually got a lot accomplished that I had been putting off forever. I perfected my extra credit system and created all new seating charts.

On Wednesday every high school in the district gave PSATs for three hours in the morning to every student in our first period. By the end of the test, less than half of my students were spending the time to read each question before filling in a bubble. In their defense, the system was completely disorganized because myself and other teachers really had no idea what we were doing. Discipline was difficult because the consequence of voiding their test if they cheat did not matter to those who did not care about the test in the first place. The people who made the PSATs would cry if they saw how poorly the tests were delivered and executed. And then following the three hour long test, the kids were expected to go to every period and actually learn something. Ha. Yeah right. My kids were saying, "Mr. Bretl, I'll try, but I bet I'm not gonna learn anything you teach today." I don't blame them.

And Thursday ended with a bang. One of my kids smacked another across the face in 6th period, opening a previous cut the kid had, sending blood ALL over the kid and his desk. Both kids were sent to the office, and I don't expect them back tomorrow. But again, no learning happened after the event, and my 6th period students were nice enough to fill my 7th period in on what had happened so they spent the first half of the period wanting to hear the play-by-play. By then I just committed to trying a new start on Monday.

So here I am Sunday night, and yes, tomorrow is the beginning of a new week. I'm feeling good. I figure you always need a crappy week to compare back to, so that was it. I'm much better planned for tomorrow anyway.